


The Ache of Lost Things

by Obscure_Shadow



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 03:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17573453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obscure_Shadow/pseuds/Obscure_Shadow
Summary: Steve manages to get Tony to agree to meet up with him after the Avengers return. It doesn't end the way he was hoping it would. Some things, once lost, stay lost.





	The Ache of Lost Things

When Steve Rogers had first opened his eyes after the plane crash, he had known right away that everything had changed. It was a sort of gut feeling deep within himself which warned him that nothing would ever be the same. The pretty woman that they’d put in front of him hadn’t distracted him from the rest of his observations, and Steve wonders a little sometimes why they didn’t try to get him with someone who looked a little more like Peggy, or even Howard. For all of SHIELD’s positive records when it came to missions, Steve had always felt like they had dropped the ball a little on his introduction into the ‘modern world’.

He hadn’t really had time to discuss that with Fury though, when it seemed like mere days after his awakening, Fury was coming to him to express a need for Captain America to return to the battlefield. Even now, even after all this time it seemed like Steve was never going to get away from the front, be it against Germany or aliens from space. So, Steve had done what he did best, he just fought and he pushed forward and he fought some more. Even if later he can admit that some fights might not have been the right ones to undertake. Looking back on his words he would taste them like acid in his mouth. He’s apologized for them, but even he could tell in those dark eyes that the apology was only accepted on the surface and that irrevocable damage had been done even as Tony smiled and shook his hand like he was taking the olive branch for what it was.

He never did though. Steve knew that somewhere deep down inside of himself and he knew that Tony knew it too. Not that it would have mattered even if he had taken it for face value, Steve would prove that he had many more times of sticking his foot in his mouth when it came to the brilliant brunet then he would ever like to admit to. Sometimes Steve wishes that he’d done things differently, and other times he knows that he should have, and yet each time Tony was there to offer a hand to help pull Steve and the others out of one hole they dug themselves in to another. Until Steve thinks he learned a habit he shouldn’t have. He learned to keep digging and to keep planting himself until Tony came over and offer the hand and filled in the damage that he kept leaving behind him.

He should have stopped, he knows that now, but he never learned how.

The coffee is too sweet and too cold, but Steve sips it anyways as those dark eyes watch him with barely veiled hostility. Steve wonders if he read his letter, and he wonders if it helped or hindered. Tony’s fingers tap against the coffee cup in his own hands, keeping a sort of rhythm that no one else was ever able to march along with him to.

“I’m glad you came.” Steve says, and the words taste like a lie on his tongue. He is glad that Tony answered his request to meet, it’s just that he’s also surprised that Tony agreed to it as well. He’d hoped that the message of ‘when and where?’ that he’d gotten to his text had come from a place inside the brunet that wanted to mend these bridges as well, but one glance in his eyes as he took his seat and that hope went out the window.

There is no forgiveness here, and there’s to be no fake acceptance of any imaginary olive branches this time. It makes Steve wish that Tony hadn’t even bothered to come. What was the point of it all if he wasn’t even willing to hear Steve out?

“You said you had something you needed to talk to me about.” Tony says calmly. “You said it was important.”

“It is.” Steve agrees and Tony just falls silent again, tapping his fingers against the cup and looking at him with cold eyes. “We’re holding a press conference for the Avengers, and I wanted to see if we might have Iron Man in attendance.”

“Iron Man is no longer on the Avengers.” Tony reminds him. “Remember?”

“I know that.” Steve says. “I just hoped that maybe we might find a way around all of this. To at least work together if we can’t be friends.”

“We were never friends.” Tony says and Steve doesn’t bother to argue. He’s tired of standing against the truth anyways.

“You’ve been with us since the beginning.” Steve says after a heavy silence between them. “I know that things have fallen apart, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay that way.”

“You have Vision and you have Rhodey.” Tony says. “You don’t need me.”

“No insult meant to Rhodes, but he’s not you.” Steve says. “And War Machine isn’t Iron Man.”

“I quit, Rogers.” Tony says, leaning back in his chair like he wants to add even the slightest amount of distance that he can manage right now between them. “And I’m not coming back. I’ve got other things on my plate these days.”

“Even if you’re angry with me,” Steve says and Tony gives him a look like he’s daring Steve to continue and Steve’s never been good at turning down a dare, “you have to admit that we’re stronger together than we are apart. You’re the one who said that a threat is coming, that we need to be ready.” Steve looks him in the eye. “That means that we need to be together, working past all of this for the greater good. This is bigger than all of us.”

“No.” Tony says with a shake of his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s no trust anymore.” Tony replies. “Not that I think there was an abundance of that before, but now it’s obsolete. Plus, there are other areas in a kind of deficit now. There’s no more respect. There’s no more concern or care about how we interact with one another or the consequences of certain actions.”

“We can get it back.”

“I’m starting to wonder if we ever had it.” Tony says. “And even if we did, there has to be a desire to ‘get it back’ as you say, which there isn’t.”

“There is.” Steve replies. “I want to get it back.”

“I don’t, and unfortunately this is a two-way street. Both of us have to be willing to do the work as it were to get anything back and I’m not going to do it. I’ve done more than enough for one lifetime and I’m not going to start jumping through hoops again because you’re finally ready to start trying to meet me halfway.” Tony puts down his coffee cup onto the table with a shake of his head and Steve wishes that he knew what was going on in the other man’s mind. “So, I’m finally content with playing the role that you’ve all been so determined to put me in. I’ll be the ‘futurist’ that Clint accuses me of. I’ll be the ‘not-team-player’ that Nat says I am. I’ll stop ‘pretending to be a hero’ and just go out and be one regardless of how you feel about it.” He stands up. “I don’t know what I was expecting from this little pow wow, but I can say that you’ve managed to hit my every expectation.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ve left me unimpressed and uninspired, as per usual. I guess I wanted to give you one last chance, for old times sake.” He shakes his head. “I see now that I shouldn’t have bothered. You haven’t changed and you never will.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Bucky.” Steve says and Tony’s lip twitches like he’s holding back an amused smile. His eyes though don’t change, there’s no warmth or emotion in them for Steve.

“Consider that a lesson.” Tony tells him. “Of how not to treat your teammates or your ‘friends’.”

“He was innocent.”

“So was I.” Tony replies. “The only one guilty in that scenario was you.” He grabs his jacket off the back of the chair. “Goodbye Rogers. If we’re lucky, this will be the last time we ever speak to one another.”  

Steve closes his eyes as Tony turns away from him and walks out of the coffee house and when he opens them, he feels it again. Everything has changed, he dropped the ball once again and nothing was ever going to put that ball back in his hands.

 


End file.
